Aldi reopened their 52nd & Keystone store on May 25. I went in there tonight, May 30, and was pleasantly surprised how they put the 20 additional feet to the right to good use! First off, the lighting is a lot calmer inside. Instead of being evenly bright, it shines selectively on certain items and gives the eyes a break elsewhere. Second, there’s signage for EVERYTHING. No matter how small the section, there’s a sign above its location in its aisle to help you find it. Third, there are more aisles now. Fourth, there is a break in every aisle in the same spot so you can cut through the store now. Fifth, there’s more space in the aisles now. Three carts could probably be nearly side by side now without incident. The layout has more freezer space and a few things have been moved. The bread is along the wall instead of by the checkout lines, the produce is in the corner, and the baking supplies are in the middle of the store. The juice is now where the bread once was by the checkout lines. I don’t like how they made a smaller space for apple juice. They used to have a space eight feet wide and six feet tall. Now it’s two feet wide and three feet tall. It’s too easy for me to buy their entire supply now. Sadly, they STILL close at 8:00 p.m. I tried to get out tonight and found that out when I was locked in. I just manually unlocked the door, pushed the doors open, walked out, and pulled the doors closed behind me. I didn’t really notice any NEW merchandise, but the remodel makes the place more pleasant to look at and easier to find things.

The Aldi I shop at on 53rd & Keystone shut down April 15 for an extensive remodel. They wanted to add another 20 feet to the side of the store to fit more freezer facilities. Part of the remodel includes a temporary shutdown. They’ve been open for a while, and while it smelled like wet cardboard, at least I could still get my groceries. I went there one last time before they shut everything down, and the place was ransacked. The freezers were blocked off, and everything that wasn’t frozen food was ransacked! At least I still got my apple juice. The renovation will be complete May 25, which seems like a long way away. I may shift over to the new Broad Ripple Fresh Thyme (with a bit of Wal-Mart to bat cleanup) in the interim, but at least the Aldi staff was nice enough to hand out coupons- $10 off a $40 purchase during the closure, valid at four other Aldi stores: 96th & Hague, 84th & Michigan, 46th & Lafayette, and Washington & Arlington. All those stores are a bit out of the way for me, but it’s nice to know they care enough to help customers with the inconvenience! I eagerly await Memorial Day Weekend when the new store is fully renovated.